Biography

Dr. Victoria Ellen Smith is Senior Lecturer in Public History at Bath Spa University and was Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Ghana. Her research on 19th/20th century Ghana prioritises West African space, thought and experience, whilst often considering Ghana's relationship with Britain.

Her interest in African radio studies focuses on colonial radio, polyglot national soundscapes and African literature in broadcast. Further research interests include state building, imperialism and nationalism, domestic slavery, Euro-African identity, and West Africans in 19th/20th century Britain. Her current project is Stranger in the Home: Imagining the Nation through Radio Ghana.

Publications include the scholarly second edition of Voices of Ghana: Literary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System, 1955-57 (2018), co-editing (with John Kwadwo Osei-Tutu) Shadows of Empire in West Africa: New Perspectives on European Fortifications (2017), and guest editing journal special issues on the intellectual legacy of Adu Boahen (with Cyrelene Amoah-Boampong) and Ghanaian literature on radio (with Audrey Gadzekpo and Helen Yitah).

She is the Founding Curator of the Adu Boahen Memorial Library and Archive (UG), and Co-Founder of the UK's South West and Wales Africa Research Network (SWWARN). She co-edits GSA's journal, Ghana Studies, with Nana Yaw B. Sapong.